#BlogTours and Using Fiverr for #BookMarketing
It’s been a while since I’ve done a post on marketing, so consider this my attempt at providing advice :)
Back when I released First to Fall (Moonlight Rogues, Book I), I didn’t have the funds to run an in depth marketing campaign. So I stuck with a couple Fiverrs to build traffic and did a blog tour - much, much later.
Here’s what I found!
*Disclaimer: I am not trying to push either of these sellers on you, it’s entirely up to you if choose to use them. Keep in mind results may vary depending on the type of book you have and its target audience.
Fiverrs
I never expected a huge amount of traffic or sales when I bought my first Fiverr. I tried 3, out of which this guy was the best.
Not only did he deliver exactly what promised, but the results were pretty damn cool!
I started averaging a sale every two days for First to Fall, and this continued long after the first week! Also, these were sales at full price.
Even today, whenever he posts some of my stuff, it’ll garner a sale or two!
I think three factors helped:
The tweet I prepared
The photo
His followers (I think over the 5 accounts he has, a lot of them are paranormal romance/fantasy readers)
Above is an example of the tweet. You'll notice the catchy tone, the #hashtags and the link, plus the banner I got professionally done by Ammonia Book Covers. I can't stress enough how much it helps to have a professional book cover done!!
Anyway, this tweet was blasted on 5+ Twitter accounts with various number of followers (usually 25k +) and the results, as I mentioned, were good sales. Ironically, I tried the same Fiverr with two of my other series, and didn’t get the same results! So, it goes to show results do vary. Could be because of book genre, cover, tweet... Various factors!
Blog tour
My next up was a blog tour I did months after First to Fall went live. I did it with Ultimate Fantasy Book Tours, and my experience was super pleasant! My questions were answered off the bat, and throughout the duration of the week-long tour, I was kept in the loop of any changes.
This was the page and interactions I got for a week at $25: https://www.ultimatefantasybooks.com/first-to-fall.php
What I got out of it? Reviews & exposure. And that’s the main thing about blog tours and author interviews - exposure. Each blogger that posts a blogspot is another chance to engage a different audience.
One piece of advice: pick blog tours with blogs that reflect your genre; and don’t be afraid to engage with the bloggers! Comment on their posts and thank them for participating.
Exposure on your own
Now, getting exposure for a book doesn't have to be all about putting money in it. You can contact bloggers on your own, and ask for reviews/author interviews/spotlights or whatever they have availability for. And that's perfectly fine, and I've done it too!
Another thing I did was setup my own marketing event, this time encompassing all my books. I called it the BookaramaFest and it even got its own hashtag! #BookaramaFest. I set it for 6 weeks, and each week spotlights one of my books. I picked a fun question per day, and I included excerpts, quotes, pictures from the spotlighted book throughout. My engagements over Facebook and Twitter have skyrocketed, as has traffic to both my pages (and even to my website!).
You can check out my Facebook and Twitter profiles to see what kind of stuff I've been doing, if you think it's up your alley :) I used Canva a lot for banners and HootSuite to schedule my posts in advance (otherwise I'd be spending half my days on social media, and I can't!).
A lot can be said about thinking outside the box and not just going after the usual marketing advice: put your book at $0.99, give it for free, get reviews. While those things are important, when you chose the path of an indie author you chose independence. And sometimes, that means breaking the mold and finding your own path - better or worse, only you can decide!
So that’s about it from my end! Hope some of this helps you guys out if you’re looking for marketing options that cost little :)
